I'm a little confused. It's a strong cover and it certainly communicates Joe Abercrombie's style. But, it's a real departure from the previous Orbit hardcover releases (as seen below).
Instead, Orbit has opted to continue with the style from the trade paperback releases.
Why? I'm sure the reasons are some combination of: the trade covers sold better, the editorial team prefers them, or it costs too much to do two separate cover designs for hardcover and trade. I'm not sure any of those reasons are particularly persuasive to me. Trades often sell better because they're cheaper. I like having two separate styles for the hardcover and trade releases. More importantly, I like having my Joe Abercrombie hardcovers look consistent on the shelf. I also really don't dig on photo realistic covers. I much prefer the stylized interpretations, something the previous Abercrombie covers have done tremendously.
What do you think?
Oh, and that appears to be Logen Ninefingers on the Red Country cover. I'm still not sure how to feel about getting Logen back. I was just coming to grips with having him gone for good.
It's a good cover, though I'd like it more if it matched the previous HB. I actually prefer the more map-centric covers of the UK releases, but then I'm a map guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty surprised to see only 9 fingers on the cover. But then again, it was pretty quickly becoming a non-secret anyway. I'm still mixed as well with Logen coming back. I really wanted him to stay ambiguous with only rumors and such appearing in the books. I thought that Joe wrapped up his arc very well in the trilogy with Logen beginning and ending in more or less the same place - falling to his apparent death.
I think I prefer the UK covers, but this is still pretty cool. Really must read some Abercrombie... Each time I went to read Blade Itself, I just wasn't in the mood for fantasy, so stopped after a couple of (admittedly excellent) chapters... :s
ReplyDeleteMy suspicion is that they liked the style of the TPB so much, they decided to do it with the HC as well.Photorealistic covers seem to be a trend these days in fantasy, I've noticed.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably because the previous HC style was shit, Justin.
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Anyway, still prefer the UK covers, and feel that they catch the depth of Joe's books better than these do, but these are probably attractive to a large portion of the targeted market.
I liked the old covers better. I really like BSC's trade cover, but TH is just boring. Now RC is boring too. And I agree with wanting my books to match on my bookshelf.
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